A study released from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)—and if you're drinking something right now you may want to put it down or risk some splash damage on your hardware—says that fully 74 percent of moms is playing games on some level. That is probably a huge surprise for some out there, but the rest of the ESA's report won't be quite so unexpected. 75 percent of those moms that game only game about once a week or so, and fully 65 percent trend toward iPads or Android phones for gaming.
Puzzle and logic games are a huge draw, bringing in about 63 percent of the flock, and 40 percent turn to card and tile games. Trivia and board games make for 35 percent, but dance games account for 11 percent. Moms turn homemaking skills to good use in life simulator games, accounting for nine percent, and in like number—nine percent—turn to fitness games to keep in good shape. Oddly, the bottom of the list was educational games at seven percent, with moms turning toward real-life adventure games at eight percent and action / adventure titles at the same rate.
Even when not gaming for personal entertainment, moms are still gaming on some level, with 71 percent closely monitoring the gaming activities of their children. What's more, 56 percent believe that gaming can be a family activity, and 32 percent believe that cognitive skills are improved thanks to gaming, not a surprise under the right conditions. The kids enjoy showing off the games to Mom and Dad, especially given the comparatively rare circumstances that make the kid the expert for a change.
The issues commonly involved in women in gaming are one of demographics, at least at the console level. Why deliberately make games for a smaller market that may not buy them anyway, or so the prevailing logic goes? But with a bit of news like this, that almost three out of every four moms out there is actively engaged in gaming, that opens up some serious opportunity. What's more, a lot of moms seem convinced that playing games with the whole family can not only be an engaging, worthwhile activity but one that can make the whole family better off as a result thanks to benefits in cognition. This opens up a lot of possibilities—when coupled with some judicious and well-targeted marketing efforts—for game publishers out there to bring a whole new line of powerful educational titles that offer the kind of simple play mechanics that can get a whole family involved, and quickly. Where formerly, the family gathered around a Monopoly board, now the family can gather around the iPad screen.
Sure, this isn't likely to bring a whole lot of big new console titles out. Mom isn't terribly interested in “Fallout 4,” sad to say. But some judicious development efforts in the direction of tablet and smartphone—where moms are clearly gaming in surprisingly large numbers—can result in a fairly substantial payoff.
The question here, of course, is just what to make of this. Will more game makers take advantage of the massive Mommy Bloc, and bring out more family-friendly games? Or will the bulk of console titles continue to skew toward the smaller hardcore gaming market? It remains to be seen just how publishers and makers will take advantage of the possibilities represented here, but it should be interesting to watch all the same.
